No Ghost in the Machine by Alan M. Kadin

Dear Alan Kadin,

Thanks for your interesting essay. I can't say that I agree with your position, but I enjoyed reading the piece. One point that I will comment on was the following;

"Furthermore, we tend to see ourselves as free agents, but we actually have much less control than we think we do. Control is just another illusion."

I would argue that one of the defining characteristics of any animate entity is control. It is only by maintaining a certain relationship between inner and outer conditions that that ability to control is maintained, and ultimately expanded (via evolution). So, how can control be an illusion? If you meant to write "conscious control", well that's a bit different. However, I would argue that it seems pretty clear that, in general, self-control increases as the complexity of an organism increases. Do you really think that people aren't getting together to decide to build things like the LHC, or to send a probe to Mars, or sell some shares of stock? It seems clear that although our conscious control as human being most certainly is supervenient upon a vast array of unconscious expressions of control, and an even larger array of uncontrolled inanimate causes, that our conscious experience cannot be labeled as an illusion.

Yours,

William Ekeson

Dear Alan Kadin,

it seems to me that you identify the source of all meaning as irreducible randomness. Mathematically, this would be no problem, since if one waits long enough, every possible event will occur. Nonetheless i ponder about the nature of randomness, if it plays such a crucial role in nature. Surely, its essence is due to the fact, that its subsequent events do - per definition - in no way refer to some other events. Every random event is independent of any other random event. But for 'every possible event will occur' to be true in general, there surely is something other needed, namely a distinction between possible and impossible events. It seems to me that the concept of randomness, aka accidental events, necessitates a meta-law dictating which events are possible and which not. To figure out the answer, one had to examine the very roots of randomness and on what ontological objects it acts upon. Alternatively, and i think this is the path you took, one takes randomness and physical laws as a package, whereby the physical laws dictate what is possible and impossible and the randomness does the rest.

Surely, in the case of the Darwinian paradigma, there is a landscape of well defined physical relationships available to act upon. But making randomness a general explanatory principle - as many scientists today prefer - one is forced to explain how genuine randomness in the first place should have come into existence. I mean here that some proponents argue that this genuine randomness is the cause of the big bang, the cause of space and time. I ponder upon how a timeless randomness can be defined meaningfully, besides the question what it acts upon in a time- and spaceless realm. If genuine randomness is such a powerfull concept that one is forced to believe in it, i have the impression that it is far from being 'meaningless'. Here my problem arises: How can one define genuine randomness as meaningful and at the same time as the parade example of meaninglessness? Well, maybe i project some 'meaning' into genuine randomness which isn't there. But if true, the meaning of randomness for the course of events and for your answer to the essay contests' question would be just another illusion (although on the basis of some other reasons as the ones you give for the illusion of agency etc.), it would have no objective, ontological meaning, if it isn't fully understood as fundamental and why. I doubt that shere irreducible randomness can produce objective meaning, unless one takes it as a synonym for a lawful behaviour: randomness is needed to produce the kind of agents which are able to figure out that randomness is needed to produce some kind of agents which are able to figure out that randomness... It seems to me that randomness is a dead end for explaining its own necessity. It is true that this tautological recursive statement makes some kind of sense, it is consistent. But is it therefore necessarily also true? If yes, randomness and necessity are somewhat intimately intertwined. Randomness and lawful behaviour are intertwined and the big question for me is how they refer to each other. You gave some well known examples for this, but at a deeper level, i would like to know how scientists imagine a world like ours to emerge out of genuine randomness and at the same time define control, agency, design, intelligence and consciousness as illusions. Surely, the brain does hide more than it reveals, but why should it be able to precisely reveal the answers to the essay contest's question, namely that they are genuinely only illusions if one assumes that they are indeed only illusions? How can illusions reveal such profound truths at all on the basis of genuine randomness? I think we aren't yet in a position to fully understand the relationship of randomness and necessity, this would be only the case if we had figured out how the cosmos came into being at the first place. Until we figure it out, i think it is problematic to conclude from parts of reality to the whole realm of existence.

Hello, Mr. Kadin,

Your essay is the first essay that I have started in FQXI for discussion as the topic is very interesting and I, pretty much enjoyed the most part of the essay.

Your way of defining illusion is very different from others. The part that I liked very much was when you mentioned " So biological design, too, is an illusion, which is explainable in terms of blind adaptation to complex environments " and "Control is just another illusion."

Also check out my essay "Our Numerical Universe" showing how, by knowing numbers and mathematical patterns of universe, we could reach aims and intentions.

Best Regards,

Ajay

Dear Alan Kadin,

if what you have analysed is a profound truth, then the illusions you spoke of not only hide profound truths, but they also can reveal them. Therefore illusion seems to me the wrong term for a mind that is able to look behind the curtain. Indeed, there is no contradiction between a physical brain, hiding some irrelevant things according to Darwinian evolution and a brain revealing that this may be the case.

The question is whether what we call mind is an illusion, due to the reasons you gave in your essay and in the comments above. If the mind is an illusion, how can you be sure that your analysis meets reality. Because your analysis has no direct impact on your survival, and therefore must not necessarily meet reality. Surely, the illusion of consciousness may have been invented in the first place due to surival aspects of evolution and at present can be used to ponder about other things and imagine some possibilities. But if it was indeed invented in the first place without a causal role, how can it be now used to look behind the curtain? Wouldn't this 'look' not also be suspicious to be only an illusion? In your analysis, the real data processing is not done by the tip of the iceberg, how can you be sure that the results of your data processing meet reality? And if the real data processing isn't done by the tip of the iceberg, why has nature invented this tip of the iceberg, if it does not do anything other than believing in illusions?

If mind and brain are gradually different (mind associated with activity/energy, brain associated with matter/activity), it is no wonder that the brain can influence the mind and vice versa. But besides this, you write that intentionality is an illusion. I do not understand what the illusory part should be here. I assume you use the false term here and what you really mean is that, although a subject may feel intentions, they are products of a deterministically working brain and therefore illusions and no free choices. If the mind and with it intentionality are really illusions, why should nature have invented them? How does the illusion of intentionality makes a data processing task in a highly complex environment more rapid? Also i cannot see how the illusion of intentionality enhances adaptation to the environment. Why can't the whole machinery not work in the same manner and efficiency without consciousness? I mean, if consciousness is really the tip of the iceberg (surely in some sense it really is, because there also exists the unconcious realms), generated by the brain and the latter described as pure data processing, why does evolution then need an illusion that only accompanies a data processing device, without having some causal powers?

Are you sure you do not overact with taking consciousness, human intelligence, intentions, wishes and aims just as data processing streams, generated by an exclusively only mechanistically operating machinery? I think your answer is no, and i wonder how artificial intelligence would answer the contest's questions. Mabe it would not attribute only the need for importance to the chairman, but also his need of having the illusion of control. Control illusions are indeed very widespread, but i think they have less to do with agency, but with fear. And it could well be that in an open world where there are many uncertainties and ambiguities, even scientists have an unconscious need for a unique worldview and choose the one which they consider most reliable. And what could be more reliable than a solid machinery with wheels, pumps, bars and levers about which we know how they work and what they can do and can't.

You say, "the illusion of intentionality exists because it is enables rapid decisions in complex dynamic environments,"

"it enables"? I take it that "it" refers not to the illusion or to intentionality in your sentence, but to the complex processes (otherwise it would be nonsense i.e., to say of an illusion that it enables something to happen...). And on this assumption (the assumption that "it" refers to complex processes), the illusion of intentionality has no function on your account... it is a kind of by-product of complex processes. Conversely, were it to have a function, then, it would have an effect which would be to say it is not immaterial to the process and thereby not illusory. If it has no function, then why does nature bother to have the illusion exist (it would have no survival benefit)? I get the sense of the logic going round in circles. Can you square it for me please?

You also suggest that your stance is not an opinion but fact, courtesy of cognitive science... Really?!

Dear Alan Kadin,

We have, in past essays, agreed in general but differed in the details. For example, the wave aspect of fundamental particles reflects internal rotating vector fields while the external motion follows classical particle trajectories. Entanglement is rejected.

Similarly, we do not believe mind and consciousness to be related to quantum effects on the atomic level. [Or 'large' molecules, such as micro-tubules.]

You discuss consciousness and intelligence, but is not clear that we define them exactly the same. You find it feasible that consciousness is a virtual reality simulation, rising from biological neural nets, perhaps from the dynamics of classical nonlinear systems. You say above that "consciousness represents a specific brain structure, rather than any independent entity or aspect."

I believe there is enough similarity in our theories of fundamental particles and associated physics, and in molecular biology of the cell and neural networks that I do understand your model. I've designed robotic systems and hold robot patents and I've thought for decades on the issues involved, and I'm simply unable to believe that mechanisms become aware through added complexity. Of course, given awareness, they become more 'intelligent' with increased neural capabilities. As I don't believe either thesis is susceptible to proof, it truly is a choice. You choose to believe that evolved structures lead to self-awareness. I do not. AI has been hyped since ELIZA in the 60s or 70s and we're still no closer as far as I can tell. Robots will become increasingly effective for working in controlled environments, but "emulating" consciousness does not yield consciousness. Nor do I conceive of an agent-generating virtual-reality structure that "constitutes consciousness". I believe these are based on projections and extrapolations. You believe no field is needed. As neither is provable, it remains personal choice as to what's deemed more feasible.

I fully agree with you there is no need for a quantum basis for consciousness, if by this you are referring to Penrose, Hameroff, et al. If you are referring to my 'qubit model' in my endnotes, my primary reason for including that was to demonstrate how easy it is to project qubits onto physical reality, potentially obscuring everything but the 'two states'. It has nothing to do with explaining consciousness.

Thanks for reading my essay and commenting. I always enjoy reading yours.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Nice essay Kadin,

Your arguments are excellent I just quoted some of them below....

1. I argue that biological intelligence is due to simple evolved structures based on neural networks, without the need for any new physical mechanisms (quantum or classical) or a "ghost in the machine". Humans see agency and intent everywhere, because we are programmed to do so. The conscious mind may turn out to be a virtual reality simulation that is largely illusory.

2. I argue that consciousness itself reflects an evolved brain structure that is not uniquely human, and provides an adaptive system capable of making rapid decisions based on simplified models and incomplete data.

3. VI. Minds, Dreams, and the Illusion of Consciousness : The most persistent illusion associated with human consciousness is that there must be an immaterial spirit. But this is clearly a remnant of pre-modern religious thinking, where everything is driven by immaterial spirits. Efforts to assert that somehow consciousness emerges from brains of a certain scale or complexity (see e.g., Teilhard de Chardin) are misdirected.

4. More recently in the 20th century, classical nonlinear dynamical systems were shown to be highly sensitive to initial conditions in a way that is practically unpredictable (the "butterfly effect") ............................ Here on this point I want you to have a look on the Dynamic Universe Model. It is not sensitive to initial conditions. These initial conditions are different from problem to problem or application to application. There are many applications from Micro level to Solar system level and Cosmos level. It derives predictable results....

For your information Dynamic Universe model is totally based on experimental results. Here in Dynamic Universe Model Space is Space and time is time in cosmology level or in any level. In the classical general relativity, space and time are convertible in to each other.

Many papers and books on Dynamic Universe Model were published by the author on unsolved problems of present day Physics, for example 'Absolute Rest frame of reference is not necessary' (1994) , 'Multiple bending of light ray can create many images for one Galaxy: in our dynamic universe', About "SITA" simulations, 'Missing mass in Galaxy is NOT required', "New mathematics tensors without Differential and Integral equations", "Information, Reality and Relics of Cosmic Microwave Background", "Dynamic Universe Model explains the Discrepancies of Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry Observations.", in 2015 'Explaining Formation of Astronomical Jets Using Dynamic Universe Model, 'Explaining Pioneer anomaly', 'Explaining Near luminal velocities in Astronomical jets', 'Observation of super luminal neutrinos', 'Process of quenching in Galaxies due to formation of hole at the center of Galaxy, as its central densemass dries up', "Dynamic Universe Model Predicts the Trajectory of New Horizons Satellite Going to Pluto" etc., are some more papers from the Dynamic Universe model. Four Books also were published. Book1 shows Dynamic Universe Model is singularity free and body to collision free, Book 2, and Book 3 are explanation of equations of Dynamic Universe model. Book 4 deals about prediction and finding of Blue shifted Galaxies in the universe.

With axioms like... No Isotropy; No Homogeneity; No Space-time continuum; Non-uniform density of matter(Universe is lumpy); No singularities; No collisions between bodies; No Blackholes; No warm holes; No Bigbang; No repulsion between distant Galaxies; Non-empty Universe; No imaginary or negative time axis; No imaginary X, Y, Z axes; No differential and Integral Equations mathematically; No General Relativity and Model does not reduce to General Relativity on any condition; No Creation of matter like Bigbang or steady-state models; No many mini Bigbangs; No Missing Mass; No Dark matter; No Dark energy; No Bigbang generated CMB detected; No Multi-verses etc.

Many predictions of Dynamic Universe Model came true, like Blue shifted Galaxies and no dark matter. Dynamic Universe Model gave many results otherwise difficult to explain

Have a look at my essay on Dynamic Universe Model and its blog also where all my books and papers are available for free downloading...

http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.in/

Best wishes to your essay.

For your blessings please................

=snp. gupta

Alan,

Quite brilliant! I'm in stunned admiration of ability to far better and more clearly express almost all the many concepts in my own essay, plus others. I've also argued that 'agency' is a misnoma in the strings but you put the case far better. I can't list all agreement but picked out the following;

"..most of human behavior is subconscious and irrational." "..a similar consciousness engine may be emulated artificially." "..each component affects the others, but also is affected by them via back-action." "...both determinism and free will are really straw men." "..our self- perceptions can be quite deceptive." "...human consciousness...may not be qualitatively different from that in "lower" organisms." ".....the human mind is preprogrammed to identify agency,"

I particular I agree and also identify the "...two distinct systems at work in the human mind: System 1 and System 2. System 1 ("fast thinking") is the unconscious mind that does things automatically without us having to think about them. System 2 ("slow thinking") is the conscious mind, which requires deliberate attention and thought. System 2 operates with a simplified model and a coherent narrative, and when the model appears inconsistent ("cognitive dissonance"), the perceptions may be altered to maintain a consistent picture." And that;

"...neural nets with many "hidden layers" between the input and output can be trained to be particularly efficient in learning to match patterns this is known as "deep learning". "

That's not yet half but I'll stop there for now to discuss and ask a question. You refer to the "...more exotic quantum effects, but it is unclear whether quantum entanglement has any significant impact ..some of these paradoxical aspects may provide a basis for aspects of the human mind and consciousness.." then (again I agree that) "Quantum Computing is not the Future of Computing ...the promised exponential enhancement in performance is based on the presence of quantum superposition and entanglement.

..early in the 20th century, both Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger questioned the foundations of quantum mechanics. Recently, Steven Weinberg (2017) has also questioned these foundations. .. ....if I am correct, this will radically disrupt the orthodox understanding of quantum mechanics, leading to the adoption of a new quantum paradigm, with major long-term implications for the future of physics."

The question is then Alan, do you yourself think you can overcome the cognitive dissonance (which I've discussed in strings and of which my essay is a self referenced test) of being presented with a simple mechanistic solution emerging providing classical foundations to QM? (also suggesting your assumptions that QM noise can't be decoded may not be entirely the case!)

I've predicted all will use thinking system 1 so reject it a-priori. Proved correct so far. But does knowing the need for system 2 actually make the difference? (the test is my essay and the accompanying video).

Great job on the essay anyway, from all perspectives.

Peter

Dear Dr. Alan M. Kadin,

Please excuse me for I have no intention of disparaging in any way any part of your essay.

I merely wish to point out that "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) Physicist & Nobel Laureate.

Only nature could produce a reality so simple, a single cell amoeba could deal with it.

The real Universe must consist only of one unified visible infinite physical surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light.

A more detailed explanation of natural reality can be found in my essay, SCORE ONE FOR SIMPLICITY. I do hope that you will read my essay and perhaps comment on its merit.

Joe Fisher, Realist

"My view is that that the subjective experience of consciousness reflects the brain activity associated not with the entire brain, but only that small portion that is projected into this self-conscious virtual reality construct." My guess is that the preceding statement represents an important insight. What is the evolutionary role of consciousness? It might be a mechanism for coordinating and triggering the various brain areas needed for decision-making and short-term learning -- good decision-making and short-term learning would be that which promotes survival and reproduction -- "good" would mean that which nature selects.

"The field of "artificial intelligence" is almost as old as computers themselves, but it has long fallen far short of its goals. The traditional method of artificial intelligence is to devise a list of rules about a particular topic, and program them into a conventional computer. But knowledge of a fixed set of rigid rules in not what we generally mean by intelligence." The preceding is another important insight, in my estimation. The "rule-based approach" to AI seems to me to be a fundamentally misguided "control freak" approach to AI. Heuristic algorithms and logic programming might work for about 5% of AI problems, but deep learning and robotics-based open-ended feeding of deep learning might be needed for 95% of AI problems. The problem would be that if the human brain becomes obsolete, human beings might find out that Darwinian evolution is brutal, wasteful, relentless, and inevitable. See how people treat mice and rats in laboratories and ask yourself if you want the human brain to become obsolete.

Alan,

Fascinating! We are diametrically opposed on the issue of consciousness and intention. I am rating you highly, as you express the reductionist abstraction from the irreducible in elegant and classic fashion. But your explanations are unable to explain your own creativity, which is wonderfully ironic.

Please allow me to quote one aspect of consciousness that is inexplicable in your terms, from my paper at http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/453:

"Consciousness can be NEGATIVE. By "negative" I don't mean its common

association with being quarrelsome or pessimistic, although they do involve

negativity. To be negative is to negate what is - to say "no", or "not", to refuse, to

decide that something shouldn't exist, or to imagine that something which doesn't

exist should. And there is no likeness of negativity in the objects of science."

"A chemical interaction is understood to be the product of what-is. Molecule A

reacts with molecule B in a definite way, unless something external and

accidental interferes. Genetic mutations, as understood in biology, are accidental

modifications; they don't occur because an existing gene is not good enough, or

because some alteration might be better. Whether a mutation is an improvement

to an organism is irrelevant to its occurrence. But our abilities to critique, to

imagine, to wish for what is-not express conscious, deliberate negations that

elude the scientific world of cause-and-effect -- just as they elude the world of

supposed randomness and unpredictability proposed by quantum theory."

"It's easy to say an insight like Einstein's theory of relativity -- a radical negation of

established beliefs -- was caused by the performance of his most excellent

network of neurons, and at a higher level, by various psychological, sociological,

and historical factors. But a negative insight can only be reduced to a series of

positive reactions by a determined refusal to negate implausibility. A theory is

what it is, its inconsistencies are what they are, and for someone to say that a

theory is not complete or not perfect or even wrong is to go beyond the

convention, to refuse what is given, to negate and conceive something else in its

place, which is to do something that is not just un-caused, but un-causable."

I welcome your reaction to this, and to my essay "Quantum spontaneity and the development of consciousness."